NAB: Sony Piloting CDS Offering at WGBH

Sony has unveiled its new Content Distribution Services (CDS) program and announced that it has started a pilot program at Boston public broadcaster WGBH.

The CDS concept is designed to create a centralized and streamlined distribution model for a broadcaster’s content using a range of Sony technologies as a managed service. These include Sony's Ci Cloud distribution, its Media Backbone content management system and its Optical Archive system.

Sony hopes to begin marketing the idea to other PBS stations in the future.

“Sony's goal is to help broadcasters overcome the cost, resource and infrastructure challenges often associated with content distribution,” said John Studdert, VP, sales and marketing, Sony Electronics in a statement. “The main benefit of this ‘managed services’ type of approach is it reduces the capital expenditure a facility has to commit to, and moves it to more of an operating expenditure framework.”

The Sony CDS program is also designed to work with a range of third-party technologies that complement the Sony solutions, including Myers (scheduling and traffic), Crispin (automation) and Harmonic (servers).

“As a public broadcaster, our resources are always an important consideration,” said Stacey Decker, CTO of WGBH in a statement. “This joint effort with Sony allows us to focus our resources on enhancing our production and programming capabilities and ensures that our station has a solid infrastructure that can support the addition of new technologies.”